Giant Eagle Brings Grabango Checkout-Free Tech to Additional Stores

Giant Eagle is rolling out Grabango cashierless payments at four GetGo Café + Market convenience/fuel locations in Pennsylvania after piloting the program in one store in Fox Chapel, Pa., last year, with more to come in GetGo stores and possibly Giant Eagle supermarkets too.

The checkout-free system is in place at GetGo stores in Pittsburgh-area communities Ross Township, Wexford, Cranberry Township and Mars. Together the quartet form a “local network effect,” according to a Grabango official quoted in a Supermarket News report.

“As we continue doubling down on creating the best in-store experience for customers, we remain drawn to Grabango because of their commitment to delivering an optimized, safe and easy experience for our loyal Giant Eagle and GetGo shoppers,” said Rug Phatak, senior director of marketing for GetGo, said in a company statement.

“Following early adoption success and shopper enthusiasm, we’re excited to roll out Grabango’s checkout-free solution to more customers throughout the Pennsylvania area,” he said.

Grabango technology uses computer vision — through small ceiling-mounted cameras — and machine learning to track the products customers add to their carts and tallies the total as they shop. After they finish shopping, customers scan the code in the Grabango app as they leave the store.

About 90 percent of shoppers at the O’Hara GetGo store in Fox Chapel reported high user satisfaction from the new way of shopping, while more than 80 percent of them were repeat customers. Grabango’s contactless checkout system saved shoppers more than seven days (10,410 minutes to be exact), according to a company announcement.

Related: Giant Eagle Grocery Stores Become First In US To Accept PayPal, Venmo

Giant Eagle, which operates 474 stores throughout Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Maryland and Indiana, last month became the first U.S. grocery and convenience chain to accept PayPal and its peer-to-peer (P2P) payments platform Venmo in stores.

“The Bring-It-To-Me Economy: How Online Marketplaces And Aggregators Drive Omnichannel Commerce,” a PYMNTS research projected created in collaboration with Carat by Fiserv, found about one-quarter of U.S. consumers would shop at physical stores more if they had the ability to pay with a digital wallet at contactless point-of-sale terminals.